The Republican journal., 1887-10-27

at Washington and lie was Slas Wright,
then United State senator He telcoraphed
q declination of the nomination, but the con-
vention would not trust the telegraph on
such an important matter and they came bv
cars to Washington 70 persuade him to &C
cept the second place on the ticket with Polk
He refused, however, and Dallas was nomi-
mated.
Morse eventually nlade fortune out of the
telegraph and il 1850 some of the foreign
powers made him n present of $4,000 The
king of Prussia gave him u gold snuff box,
and he received Il present from the sultan of
Turkey of !. decoration belonging to The court
in diamonds Still, while his bill wa; before
congress, be said one day That he had enough
money TO pay lis beard and ret out OF Wash
ington if The bill did not pas 1t was passed
the last day of the congress of 1915; and it
gave him $4,000 to build an experimental
liuc between Washington and Baltimore He
first tried to lput the Niro in Il lead pipe in
the ground, but finally adopted the pole sys-
ten which i; now III use.
To show how little the people then knew Of
the telegraph, DO less q man than the secrc-
tarY Of the treasury asked Morse how largo a
bundle could lie sent over the wires, and he
wanted to Know whether il might not Itc pos
si!lc for Tho t]nitcl States mail 10 lie carried
by them. \ congressman brought q bundle
Of dirty SHIRTS to the Telegraph Office in tho
Capitol and wanted them sent TO Baltimore
for washing. Dolly Madison sent message
TO Il friend Of her; in Baltimore and the telc-
graph Wa; tic great excitement of the hour.
Morse at This time offered his whole RIGHT in
the patent TO the government for 100000,
and was, fortunately for him, laughed at and
refused
II Wa; upon this ihat til" Baltimore and
Ohio Telegraph company, during the time it
was lighting, the Western Union, based its
claim to he the oldest telegraph company in
the world in that il held this; line between
Washington and Baltimore upon which mes
scgcs were first scnt. Now the United States
has 1Gl ,G-+ miles Of telegraph wire instead of
forty, and il e;lrpa:ses; the other countries Of
the world in its Geographic. business; Tho
whole world has more than tt0O,0U0 mile; Of
telegraph lines or enough TO put ii wire
twcntv-folr time; around the whole world
and have some thousand Of miles to spare
China las only 81 miles of wire, and when
you consider that its population is perhaps
six times that Of the United States You can
sec what illG!oiisa opportunity is open to
such a scheme a.; that of Wharton Barker
and Mltklcwicz China has just .22-1OO of a
mile Of wrc to every 1880 square miles of
territory, or in round numbers, hardly moro
than n foot of wire to every square milo OF
her territory. Belgium, Oh the other hand,
which has perhaps the most telegraph
wire in proportion to its territory, has
cnc-half mile of wire to each square
mile Of territory, and France has ono
third of a mile OF wire to each square
milo of her area. In all Europe there is not
much more than twice the amount of tele-
graph lines tina. there are in the United
States, and we send about 70,0O0,000 mos
sages year to half that number by Great
Britain. Japan is rapidly increasing as a
Geographic nation, and it sends moro than
100000 of messagesa year. 1t is its activity
in this regard that has stirred up China and
am told by travellers that tho enterprise Of
the japanese is having great influence upon
their Chinese neighbors
Bancroft, the historian, works from to
o'clock every day, and he docs not seem to
grow older. I came across q curious item
about him tho ether day in an old book pub
lished thirty-six years ago. Tho book gave